{"id":253,"date":"2010-09-13T21:16:26","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T02:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=253"},"modified":"2010-09-13T21:16:26","modified_gmt":"2010-09-14T02:16:26","slug":"a-j-blackwell-strikes-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"A.J. Blackwell Strikes Again!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 386px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/24317830@N04\/4480532390\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Drawing of Henry &quot;Bear Fighting&quot; Blackwell\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4028\/4480532390_848041fd38.jpg\" alt=\"Drawing of A.J. &quot;Bear Fighting&quot; Blackwell\" width=\"376\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Drawing of A.J. &quot;Bear Fighting&quot; Blackwell in his later years.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=75\">one of our previous posts<\/a>, A.J. \u201cBear Fighting\u201d Blackwell was  mentioned. Blackwell, one of the earliest residents of Joplin, built the  first opera house in Joplin. After serving a sentence for  counterfeiting in the Missouri State Penitentiary, he left Missouri and  founded the town of Blackwell, Oklahoma. He became a wealthy and well  known figure who lived an interesting life.<\/p>\n<p>According  to an article from a Blackwell newspaper, Blackwell was accused of  \u201cperiodical insanity and one of these spells is upon him.\u201d For the last  few days \u201che has been terrorizing the entire city and community with his  threats, and being heavily armed continuously, it is a question as to  what he might do.\u201d Prior to his illness, he had Miss Effie Widick, a  Blackwell school teacher, arrested for punishing one of his children.  She was acquitted, but Blackwell was not satisfied. He traveled to  Wichita, Kansas, in an attempt to have her indicted in U.S. federal  court.<\/p>\n<p>The  news report claimed, \u201cHe once stood off a mob of negro haters with a  Winchester and incurred the enmity of nearly the entire citizenship,  which finally succeeded in ridding the town of the black race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blackwell  proclaimed that he was a member of every church in town and \u201chas been  dead twice and returned to life to warn the people to join as many  churches as possible.\u201d In the meantime, \u201che drives up and down the  streets, hooting and yelling like an Indian, waving firearms and even  defying the officers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite  his insanity, Blackwell had somehow managed to invest in a coal company  and direct coal to be shipped from Chelsea, Indian Territory to  Blackwell.<\/p>\n<p>When he died in 1903, his obituary failed to mention his bouts of \u201cinsanity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: Joplin News Herald<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In one of our previous posts, A.J. \u201cBear Fighting\u201d Blackwell was mentioned. Blackwell, one of the earliest residents of Joplin, built the first opera house in Joplin. After serving a sentence for counterfeiting in the Missouri State Penitentiary, he left Missouri and founded the town of Blackwell, Oklahoma. He became a wealthy and well known [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[552,35],"tags":[1052,1051,294,328,1053,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}